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Koufax finished reading Hard Knocks by Nathan Lowell (Sc Marva Collins, #3)

No cover — Nathan Lowell: Hard Knocks (EBook, Durandus)

Hard Knocks by Nathan Lowell (Sc Marva Collins, #3)

It pays to take a second look. In the Deep Dark, it's a long walk home.

The Marva Collins runs …

Koufax rated Hard Knocks: 3 stars

Hard Knocks by Nathan Lowell (Sc Marva Collins, #3)

It pays to take a second look. In the Deep Dark, it's a long walk home.

The Marva Collins runs …

Koufax rated Working Class: 3 stars

Working Class by Nathan Lowell (SC Marva Collins, #2)

A Brand New Ship A Brand New Crew What could possibly go wrong?

When Ishmael takes a crew of academy …

Koufax rated School Days: 3 stars

School Days by Nathan Lowell (SC Marva Collins, #1)

A New Ship A New Crew A Different Kind of Mission

When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to …

Koufax rated By Darkness Forged: 3 stars

By Darkness Forged by Nathan Lowell (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper, #3)

Profits. Coffee. Extortion. All in a day’s work.

When Ishmael takes the Chernyakova back into Toe-Hold space, he finds a …

Koufax rated To Fire Called: 3 stars

Nathan Lowell: To Fire Called (Paperback, 2018, Durandus)

To Fire Called by Nathan Lowell

Koufax rated The Glass Hotel: 5 stars

Emily St. John Mandel: The Glass Hotel (Paperback, 2020, HarperCollins Publishers)

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. New …

Koufax reviewed Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …

Interesting book

4 stars

Koufax reviewed In Ashes Born by Nathan Lowell

Nathan Lowell: In Ashes Born (Paperback, 2016, Durandus)

Trivial

3 stars

This is the lightest SF that I have read over the last few years. The whole series is for when you want to switch off your brain and just read about nice people doing not very exciting things in space. Recommended when life becomes too much. This part is very, very slow moving. Quite some annoying fan service. The earlier parts are more fun.

Koufax reviewed How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Sequoia Nagamatsu: How High We Go in the Dark (Hardcover, 2022, William Morrow)

Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work …

Death, death, and death

5 stars

On the first few pages, an ancient virus is released to the world. Then people start dying.

This is not so much a novel as a collection of short stories that are connected by the world, and sometimes share some of the characters. All stories deal with different aspects of how a pandemic plays out if it is really bad. There is no cure, no real treatment, people suffer, die, lose friends, family and hope, grieve. For 300 pages.

This might sound bleak, because it really is. Some of the stories messed me up a lot. But at the same time, the stories, how they relate, most of the characters, are fascinating and beautiful. So I do recommend this, but be warned that it can be tough.

Koufax reviewed A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys

Ruthanna Emrys: A Half-Built Garden (EBook, 2022, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown …

Could have been nice

3 stars

I like the whole idea and the world. But I feel that this book would have needed a good editor. In large parts not much happens, only endless talking. Also, the characters needed more work: most of them have a single defining characteristic, and we learn nothing else about them. This is true even for relatively central characters, like the wife of the main character, the co-parents, essentially all the aliens. Maybe there are simply too many characters to flesh them out? For example, the main character has three parents (to signal diversity?), but we learn nothing about the two mothers - they appear, but don't really do anything. Instead, additionally, an aunt is introduced that has a single defining character trait (something about technology). Why not simply merge her into one of the parents? A similar approach for other characters could have kept the number of characters at a …

I like the whole idea and the world. But I feel that this book would have needed a good editor. In large parts not much happens, only endless talking. Also, the characters needed more work: most of them have a single defining characteristic, and we learn nothing else about them. This is true even for relatively central characters, like the wife of the main character, the co-parents, essentially all the aliens. Maybe there are simply too many characters to flesh them out? For example, the main character has three parents (to signal diversity?), but we learn nothing about the two mothers - they appear, but don't really do anything. Instead, additionally, an aunt is introduced that has a single defining character trait (something about technology). Why not simply merge her into one of the parents? A similar approach for other characters could have kept the number of characters at a more manageable level and made them less one-dimensional.

As it is, there is very little going on and at the same time the characters are not well done. Either of these problems would have been OK for me, but having both is a little much.